


Brilliant

by r_lee



Category: Eight Days of Luke - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 22:09:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2827799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r_lee/pseuds/r_lee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Astrid might have been visited by them all along. If only she could remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brilliant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TLvop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TLvop/gifts).



Astrid grew up backwards. 

It isn't that she started out old and got young, at least not physically. But she did start out like an old woman _emotionally._ She was irritable a lot of the time. When her little friends were out playing, she stayed home to cook and to read. During school, she knew the answers to questions her classmates had yet to so much as consider. Young Astrid was very lucky, indeed. Learning was easy for her, as she was rather an advanced child.

By the time adolescence arrived at her doorstep, wrapped in disguise as a gift she didn't want, things had started to shift. The harder she tried, the more difficult it got to stay better than everyone else. Her teenage years were awkward, to say the least. She was rarely included in group activities and almost never dated, because she still had a high degree of superior knowledge and it was off-putting to her classmates. It wasn't until that sort of brilliance (and really, she was quite the genius) had begun to fade that she found she fit in more like a normal girl should, or would. She fell from the top of the academic standings to somewhere in the middle and stayed there rather happily. The less outspoken she became, the more the other students started to notice and include her. 

The attention both delighted and annoyed her, but many days she could hardly remember why she _should_ be fussed by it. In particular, she couldn't quite recall details of a late-night visit from a woman whose name sounded awfully like Frigg, or the fact her visitor had mentioned that Astrid's mind had run ahead of her emotions and needed to be evened out. _Save those brains of yours, Astrid,_ she'd said. _The time will come when you'll need all the wits at your disposal._ The words floated away and tucked themselves into the back of her thoughts in case they might be needed later. As it turned out, she didn't need them again for quite a long while.

At nineteen Astrid took a job for moderately good wages as a typist. She met Ronald Price, decided he was the sort of person one could count on for financial support, and married him. Since she'd dismissed the late-night visit from the strange but lovely woman as little more than childish fantasy, she never did piece together that her illnesses began around the time Frigga had called on her. Her head, it was always her head fogging over. It was as if there had been something important rattling round in there, but the memory of what mattered most was always just out of reach.

Then, of course, Luke entered the scene and just as prophesied, Astrid needed all the wits at her disposal. What a fortunate thing for her that what started out as backwards righted itself at the proper moment! Her memory freshened but more than that, her _heart_ remembered what it meant to be whole and wise and good and kind. That was a gift bestowed upon her not by Luke so much as it was by David. She stopped seeing him as an annoyance and realized she liked him quite well exactly as he was. Finally, Astrid knew what needed to be done and resolved to be so very helpful. From time to time she muddled things up, because she was only human and her emotions were still straightening themselves out, but more often than not she was, as David liked to say, _brilliant._

**Author's Note:**

> From goddessgift.com: _The Nordic goddess Frigga is a goddess who keeps us in touch with our intuitive nature and helps us make transitions and new beginning._
> 
> _And as a goddess of love and divination, Frigga helps keep our lives in alignment with our spiritual selves._
> 
> She sounded like an ideal visitor for young Astrid, whose emotional growth and resonance during the book are simultaneously subtle and spectacular.


End file.
